Second-year Will Froelich has no idea what the Fowler Museum of
Cultural History is.
Peter Young doesn’t know that the museum is free to UCLA
students.
In fact, a surprising amount of UCLA students go through four,
five, or more years at UCLA either completely oblivious or not
caring about the goings-on at a museum that takes up a visible spot
on campus, just down the steps from Royce Hall.
“Some people have class downstairs from the museum and
don’t even know it’s there,” said Alexandra
Paulenko, a second-year molecular, cell and developmental biology
student and student tour guide at the Fowler Museum.
Fowler is gearing up for its 10/40 anniversary in 2003, which is
shorthand for two important anniversaries in the museum’s
history. It has been 40 years since the UCLA Museum of Cultural
History’s inception and 10 years since it moved from the
basement of Haines Hall, into becoming the Fowler Museum in its
present location.
Admission to Fowler has long been free to students. However,
beginning this month, in honor of the dual anniversary, admission
to the museum is now free for all visitors as well. This makes the
Fowler Museum one of only a handful of free museums in Southern
California.
Students still aren’t aware of the museum’s free
admission.
“I’ve never noticed the banners or heard of Fowler.
Maybe I’ll go see it if I have an extra hour,” Froelich
said after hearing of the museum’s free admission policy.
“I had no idea that Fowler is free,” said
second-year Peter Young. “I think that should be a strong
selling point; it would make me much more likely to visit the
museum.”
According to Paulenko, the focus of many of the exhibits, which
generally are centered around art and material from Africa, Asia
and the Americas, fails to capture the interest of many
students.
But the museum’s main goal is to bring the international
world to the heart of the UCLA campus. In the course of the next
academic year, Fowler will host exhibits from Nigeria, Japan, the
Southwest, Mexico, Senegal and Madagascar.
“Anybody who’s interested in the peoples of the
world, travel, or art should be interested in Fowler,” said
Stacey Abarbanel, director of communications for the museum.
“Fowler is an incredible opportunity to learn about the
world, and especially in Los Angeles, I can’t think of
anything more relevant than learning about the world.”
Despite being a university institution, Abarbanel roughly
estimates that only 20 to 25 percent of the museum’s visitors
are UCLA students. And of the students that do come, the majority
are students studying subjects related to the exhibitions, such as
art, history, anthropology and archaeology, according to
Arabanel.
Even with an estimated 20 to 25 percent student audience on a
midweek visit to the museum, when the campus is crawling with
students, it is hard to find a museum-goer under 50.
“We of course would like more visitors,” Abarbanel
said. “We’re hoping people will just pop in between
classes.”
Though UCLA students don’t comprise the majority of museum
attendance, the museum has managed to reach people beyond UCLA. Its
exhibits have travelled around the country, being viewed by more
than five million people in the museum’s history, according
to Fowler’s statistics.
The museum is now trying harder to reach out to UCLA students
with weekly ads in the Daily Bruin called “What’s Art
This Week” and the debut of the new program “Fowler Out
Loud.” “Loud” will be a UCLA student performance
series of live music, drama, dance, performance art and spoken
word, which will take place Thursdays at 8 p.m. starting in
January.
“We’re hoping that “˜Fowler Out Loud’
will be a way to bring students in,” said Abarbanel.
“Student performers can bring their friends in on Thursday
nights before they go out.”
The museum has always advertised with banners and flyers, but
these efforts often go unnoticed on a campus brimming with various
handouts and posters.
“I just don’t think students know it’s there;
there are not a whole lot of advertisements for it,” Paulenko
said. “I’m currently (living) in the dorms, and I just
don’t see postings where people congregate.”